


Dans La Ville Des Lumières

by nightfalltwen



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Love at First Sight, Not Canon Compliant, Paris (City)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-23 08:37:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10715976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightfalltwen/pseuds/nightfalltwen
Summary: Ron spends Christmas Eve in Paris in unexpected company.





	Dans La Ville Des Lumières

**Author's Note:**

> Written in **2005** as a gift for a friend from the RPG Triumvirate. Like this is old. So old. And relatively un-edited from its original posting. I just felt like having it somewhere that was not livejournal. And there are lots of things I like about this super old story. But its definitely 12 year old writing. lol. But I'm okay with that.

*~*~*

_Paris, 24 December, 2008_

The bar had a polished sheen to it and Ron was careful to sit his hi-ball glass down on the coaster provided. Not that he couldn't spell away any rings, but more that he didn't feel like bothering if it happened, which it wouldn't because he was using a coaster. The amber liquid was little comfort to him as he sat alone in the small bar in the wizarding section of Paris. Outside the snow fell, thick and innocent.

Ron considered leaving and returning to England. He didn't have to remain in the city of lights. His team from the Department of Magical Games and Sports had finished negotiations for the upcoming Quidditch League exchange early and he could have caught the last portkey to London. But he stayed. He stayed because he couldn’t stand to see their faces. Because he was tired of being shown how happy everyone else was and most of all because he couldn't bring himself to explain _again_ why he'd ended his nearly three year relationship with Susan. Quite obviously, "I wasn't in love with her, Mum" didn't have the effect that he wanted. He knew it only left his mother wondering if her youngest son would ever settle down like the rest of the family.

"Merlin's beard, Weasley, I hardly expected you to loll about after all those long hours. Shouldn't you be trying to cram yourself into a house with far too many people than should be allowed?"

The familiar voice didn't surprise Ron and he threw back the whiskey, wincing only slightly as it sluiced down his throat. He glanced over at Pansy Parkinson, who'd slid into the seat next to him, an oddly pleasant smile on her face despite the crack she'd just made about his family. She'd been at every meeting between his team and the _Régie des Jeux et Sports_ , working as a translator between the British and French Ministries. He eyed her for a long moment and tried to figure out why she was talking to him. The decision to get up and leave tickled the back of his mind because, as much as he didn't feel like going home, he didn't want to hear his family insulted.

"Parkinson, I'm not in the mood." He pushed the glass away and turned to lean with his back against the bar. "What do you want?"

"Can't an old school chum say hello?"

"I wouldn't exactly call us 'chums' Parkinson." Ron couldn't help but laugh. "In fact I don't think I'd call us _anything_ close to 'chums' to be honest."

"No, I suppose you wouldn't." She shrugged and scooted off the chair and began to put gloves onto her hand, stretching her fingers out. "But it's been ten years. You've grown and I've grown... " Her voice trailed off and she began to tuck the ends of her scarf into her jacket.

Ron found himself watching her movements. So precise and seemingly calculated, the scarf making an X underneath her jacket as she did the buttons up from the bottom to the top. They'd not said more than two personal words to each other since he'd arrived in the city. Every conversation had been one of business, quickly translated into French and delivered to the person he was actually talking to. She had been very professional during their meetings and Ron had been impressed with the way she conducted herself. Though he didn't think he'd admit it aloud.

"I'll leave you to your drink, Weasley," Pansy said and gave him a curt nod. She turned on her heel and walked toward the door.

Ron watched her receding form and frowned. He didn't _understand_ Slytherins. He didn't know why everyone seemed to forget how they all were when he was in school or the things that they did. But after the war, everyone around him was gung-ho on seeing the good in them. Even Ginny who'd shocked everyone by _marrying_ one of them. Ron had still not gotten over his issues with her and Draco Malfoy, but tried not to let himself dwell on those thoughts -- if he did, he might never let them go.

But Pansy. He didn't hate Pansy, but he didn't necessarily like her. Or rather he didn't think that he liked her. Even after the last two weeks. Or he wasn't sure about it all. In any case he was still finding himself watching her walk away. Quite possibly the only English voice he would come across unless he decided to make his way back home. He supposed that in itself had merits.

It wasn't until he'd caught her arm at the door that Ron realised he'd gotten off his seat to follow her. "Wait." He surprised himself with his actions. "Have coffee with me?"

Half of her mouth curled up in a smirk that Ron was sure Slytherins must take lessons on how to do because he'd seen that exact look on Draco's face more often than he'd care to admit. She dropped her hand from the door. "Now why would you want to have coffee with someone who wasn't exactly your chum, Weasley?"

"Because it's Christmas Eve? Because I like coffee?" Ron counted on his fingers. "Because you're the only English person in this bloody city, so why not?"

"If you think I'm the _only_ English person here, Weasley, you're not too well informed about Paris." Her hand returned to the door.

"Have you got something better to do?" He didn't think she had. Or she would have been doing it and not talking to him.

Pansy looked at the fingers of her free hand as if she was studying her nails under her gloves. "As a matter of fact I could—"

"Oh for crying out loud, just say you'll have coffee with me."

*~*~*

They found a small café just off the _Avenue de Champs Élysées_. Pansy ordered the drinks after Ron stumbled over the few phrases that he knew. Apparently, "I would like a cheese sandwich" did not help the man behind the counter in the slightest. The hour was late and the owner of the shop looked relieved when they told him they would be taking their drinks with them. The snow began to fall more heavily and for a city so populated, the cars became less numerous on the avenue toward the _Arc de Triomph_. Pansy mumbled something about this being one of the heaviest snowfalls the city had seen in years and turned the collar of her jacket up around her neck before taking her cup from Ron.

They left and started to walk up the Avenue toward the Arc. Pansy kicked up the snow with her heeled boots as she moved.

"So. You never did say why you were still here in the city instead of home with your family." She raised the steaming cup to her lips and blew on it before taking a sip. Fluffy flakes of snow fell from the sky and clung to her hair and jacket.

Heat from the paper cup bled through Ron's gloves and warmed his hands; he held it close to his chest. Lights strung through the trees along the snowy sidewalk, glowing white and blue across the drifts that banked either side of them. He let out a breath, watched it fog out in front of him and drift up to mix with the flurry and wondered why the Christmas season didn't seem to leave that much of an impression on him this year.

"I don't suppose you've ever felt overwhelmed by your family before, have you?" He didn't wait for her to answer, nor did he really expect her to have one. "I wouldn't be the life of the party. They're better off enjoying their Christmas without me darkening everyone's day."

Pansy let out a throaty laugh. Ron's eyebrows knit together in a frown and he stopped, watching her continue on before she turned and looked at him. A small prideful voice inside his head said to end this now and go back to his hotel room. Yet the tone of her laughter wasn't mocking, which he found entirely too odd.

"Shame, Weasley." She didn't look at him. "I had you pegged as someone with a more upbeat outlook."

"I had you pegged as someone who didn't bother to peg other people," he shot back.

"I peg people constantly. How else am I supposed to form opinions?"

Ron took a large gulp of his coffee, then fanned his mouth to soothe the burning. "You could try getting to know them and form an opinion that way," he rasped, still sucking in cold air to soothe his mouth.

Pansy shook her head. "Oh don't pretend like you didn't already have a pre-formed opinion of me."

"How could I not? You and yours treated me and mine like rubbish."

Pansy turned around and walked backwards in front of him. "We had a stereotype to live up to, Weasley. As did you." She tilted her head and after a few moments of walking in silence she spoke again. "Ever wonder if it was the hat? That maybe we weren't sorted in accordance to our traits, but perhaps we developed those traits after being sorted?"

The question stopped Ron in his tracks. He'd thought about it once or twice in passing. Wondered if he'd be different if he was put in another house, but pushed the thoughts aside in favour of trusting the old hat and its decision. He looked at Pansy. She crossed her arms and took another drink, her eyebrow lifting delicately as she peered over the lip of her cup at him. This whole situation threw him completely, but he wanted to be adult about it and give her the benefit of the doubt, even if every childish instinct buried deep within him screamed for him to just give up and leave.

"Is there a reason why we're doing this?" He asked finally.

"Doing what?"

"This." Ron gestured around him. "The walk. The coffee. The conversation."

"You're the one who asked if I wanted to have a coffee if I recall correctly." She looked amused.

"You could have just left."

"You could have stayed on your chair sipping whiskey until the Mass bells rang."

"You could have told me to piss off." It started to feel a bit like a game. Ron found himself smiling.

"Would you have taken that for an answer?"

"No." _That _surprised him.__

__"Then that's why I didn't." She raised her chin, eyes meeting his._ _

__Ron sighed, the smile disappearing. "So what do we do now?"_ _

__"You could kiss me." Her smirk returned._ _

__"I could what? Parkinson are you off your rocker?" Ron blinked, the expression on her face practically smoldered. He couldn't help but feel his pulse quicken._ _

__"Perhaps I am."_ _

__Pansy dumped out the rest of her coffee and binned her cup. She took a step closer to Ron, hooked her fingers in the neckline of his jacket and pulled him enough that he was hunched over to match her height. And before he could think of a valid excuse for her to stop, she pressed her lips against his. So lost and distracted by the motion, his own cup slipped from his hand and splashed across the snow. Somewhere in the back of his mind he registered a brief warmth and then cold against his ankle where the drink had doused his trouser cuff._ _

__Everyone he'd ever kissed before flashed across his memory. The doomed relationship with Hermione after the war. The few short encounters with co-workers. The epic nearly three year rut he got into with Susan. All of them started after much cajoling from friends and after too much circling about the other person until someone finally just pushed him forward and now here he was, kissing the last person he expected to be kissing without so much of a thought about relationships or futures or anything but the extraordinary way her lips felt cold and hot at the exact same time._ _

__And he liked it._ _

__She pulled away from him, let go of his jacket and flattened her hand against his chest. He was certain she could feel the rapid beats of his heart. He opened his mouth to say something that would break the silence between them. Something profound or at least something that explained what he was suddenly feeling even if he couldn't figure it out on his own. But nothing came out. And when she pressed her gloved fingers to his lips, he knew she didn't want him to say a word_ _

____

*~*~*

_25 December, 2008_

Ron opened his eyes and stretched one arm up over his head and became more aware of the soft body curled up beside him. Pansy's eyes remained closed, long, dark lashes fanning out over her cheeks. Her steady breath tickled across his bare chest and Ron felt himself quite conflicted over what he felt toward her or what he was starting to feel. It couldn't be anything more than a physical attraction to her, he reasoned with himself. Instant love was something for fairy stories or those cheap romance novels that Susan used to keep in the bedside table.

He slung an arm across his eyes and settled back against the pillows.

"Seems Father Christmas has found you," she whispered. He hadn't realised she'd woken up. "There appears to be a number of parcels sitting on the chair by the fire."

"Are you sure they're mine?" Ron lifted his arm and tucked it behind his head.

He felt her prop up on her elbow and opened his eyes. He smiled. There was a crease on her cheek from the blanket and he dragged a finger down the length of it. She looked utterly dishevelled and perfectly mussed up and he was surprised to know that her hair -- so styled and smooth the night before -- could look that tangled and beautiful all at once.

Beautiful. He'd just thought of her as beautiful.

"They're yours." Her tone was final and he didn't press her further. She smiled up at him with the kind of smile that only showed the top row of her teeth and scooted closer to press a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth, then his neck, then his shoulder before sitting up against the headboard. "So, let's see what you got."

"Give me five minutes." Ron scrubbed his face with his hand and ran his tongue over his teeth, which felt embarrassingly fuzzy, before he slid out of bed. His clothes sat in a messy pile on the floor beside the bed, his trousers tangled with her jumper. He pushed them to the side and crossed the room into the ensuite bathroom.

Delicately carved soaps, crystal perfume bottles and pristine canisters of cotton balls stood imperiously at the edge of the sink and fluffy white towels hung evenly on the towel bar beside the shower. He suspected that she had a House Elf to make certain that everything was just so and if she didn't, t was certainly a quirk he never considered she might possess.

Ron looked at himself in the mirror; a plum-dark bruise marked his collarbone. He smiled and touched it briefly in reminder of how they spent the night. To say that he'd had a cheery fun time would be an oversimplification. This was deeper and he knew it somehow in the back of his mind. Things were changing rapidly. Maybe he was finally caught up in the spirit of Christmas and maybe it was the influence of the city, but unlike all the nights he'd spent with other women, he didn't feel flummoxed or worried about the repercussions that were subsequently supposed to follow over the day. It was odd and yet completely welcome.

He heard a voice in the bedroom. It wasn't Pansy's voice, but someone who had just arrived. Not wanting to be caught starkers by a total stranger, he grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist, tucking the ends in order to secure it. He moved to the door and listened.

"What _are_ you doing still in bed, Pansy?" Sharp heels clicked across the bedroom floor. "Have you forgotten our Christmas luncheon?"

A rustle of bedcovers and soft pats of bare feet signalled that Pansy had gotten out of bed. He saw her profile as she sat at the vanity near the window, now wearing a dressing gown, and pulled a brush through her hair. She spoke to the visitor by looking at the mirror, reflecting her conversation over her shoulder. "I haven't forgotten, Millicent," she said coolly. "I merely chose to have a lie-in before I dressed."

Millicent Bulstrode. Ron remembered her from school and how she narrowly escaped Azkaban by claiming she had reformed, that she had been coerced into playing the role of Death Eater and he remembered how she bought her freedom by giving up her own parents to the Wizangamot after the war. The outcry had been great but the Wizangamot had grown exhausted from endless proceedings and her tears had seemed genuine.

"And look. You got presents this year." There was a rustle and tear of paper. "Oh my word, Pansy. Whomever you are seeing, drop him like a stone. Maroon is _not_ your colour in the slightest." Millicent's laugh was high and grating. "It's so horribly quaint and homespun. How atrocious."

Ron's jaw ached from being clenched. He might not like the homemade jumpers that he received every Christmas all that much, but he also didn't like other people insulting something his mum put so much time and effort into making for him. He looked to Pansy and waved his arm to get her attention. Her eyes swept briefly to the door of the ensuite but she said nothing. Instead she just sat at her vanity, brushing her hair as if the insults that Millicent threw at his gifts were commonplace.

The sound of parcels hitting the floor was next and the slight creak of the chair as Millicent sat down. "So who sent it? Oh my goodness, Pansy, are you _slumming_?"

Pansy leaned closer to the mirror and rubbed the edge of her mouth with her fingertip. "Really, Millicent, could you be any more crass?"

But, to Ron, that wasn't the same as saying no.

"Oh look, Pansy," Millicent chuckled. "Here's a tin of baking. All is not lost. At least you will have things to nibble on while you burn the rest."

Ron pressed his hand against the doorframe, his fingers curled inward to his palm. He didn't consider himself stupid. He knew he was thick at times, but he was not a complete idiot. He watched her rub lotion over her arms as if everything was fine and dandy and a frown spread across his face. If he needed a sign that it was his time to leave, this was it.

He dropped his hand to where the towel was tucked about his waist and walked into the room. Millicent dropped the tin on the floor, biscuits and tarts scattered out around her feet and she stood. Pansy froze, but Ron said nothing to either of them. He stooped down on the side of the bed that Millicent couldn't see and gathered his clothing and wand, setting them on the bed. He sat next to them and dressed quickly, ignoring the fact that he had to do it in front of Millicent and trying to put the feeling of his hot ears out of his mind.

"Ron." Pansy's voice cut through the thick silence and she turned away from her mirror.

"Don't." He tugged a sock on, the heel twisted around to the top of his foot. He stood as he walked past Millicent, he scooped up the maroon jumper she'd dropped onto the floor.

Then he left. He left without goodbyes or explanations or listening to any excuses. He closed the door hearing Millicent ask if he was a Weasley with scorn and disgust dripping from her tone. With the Ministry offices closed for the holiday, he had no choice but to leave Paris the Muggle way. In any case he didn't stop until he'd walked through the door at the Burrow.

*~*~*

"Ron, come into the sitting room for drinks." Ginny curled her arms around his neck and rested her chin on his shoulder. "We've not seen you for a fortnight and we're dying to know how your trip to France was."

Ron smiled and patted his sister's arm. He knew everyone was surprised at his sudden arrival after the owl he'd sent the night before explaining why he wasn't going to be around. He'd gotten there shortly after tea and just before the freezing rain had started. Nieces and nephews and in-laws and his parents filled the tiny home and he'd chosen to sit in the kitchen by himself for a bit to catch a breath.

"It wasn't so memorable, Gins. Barely worth mentioning." His stomach squeezed uncomfortably. "I'm probably going to head home soon."

"But you only just got here." She stood up and circled around him, hands on her hips. "And it's Christmas. Mum was heartbroken when she got your owl and then you arrived here and now you're just going to pick up and leave again?"

He met his sister's gaze, an expression so much like his mother's plastered across her face. He knew he was bringing the holiday down for everyone by being so gloomy in the kitchen and he wanted so much to pretend he was joyous. He stood and pulled Ginny into a hug, kissing her temple, but found words to explain what he was feeling to be altogether too difficult to pull into a sentence.

He reached for his jacket, left slung over a chair back and slung it over his shoulders. "Let them know I had a good time and I'll come 'round for Boxing Day tea."

"But Ron ..."

"I'm really tired, Gins. It's been a long day." He did up the buttons on his jacket. "Things are alright."

"Oi Ronnie!" The door to the kitchen opened and Charlie stuck his head inside. A wreath of pine sat haphazard on his head and he rapped loudly on the doorframe to get their attention. He blinked and looked Ron up and down. "Leaving already? Mum's going to throw a fit at that, you know. Coming all this way to only stay for three hours and half of them being in this kitchen." He looked to Ginny and pointed with his Butterbeer bottle. "You're supposed to block the door with your girth to keep him from doing that."

"Charlie, I might be pregnant, but I'm not big enough yet to do that!" Ginny covered her mouth with a laugh.

"Pish!" Charlie waved his bottle at Ginny, slopping drink on the floor. He looked back to Ron and waggled his eyebrows. " _You've_ got a visitor."

Ron shrugged off his jacket and left it in the kitchen, walking out into the mass of people in his parents' sitting room. He scanned the crowd before looking back at Charlie. "There's no one new here."

"She's outside. She didn't want to come in." Charlie slung his arm over Ron's shoulder and patted him lightly on the chest. "Not even Mum's "eyebrow" could sway her. It was a sight to behold."

Ducking out from under Charlie's arm, Ron made his way across the room to the front door. He knew who waited for him, but why was a question he couldn't answer. Draco looked up from the rowdy game of chess he'd started with George and raised his eyebrows. Ron waved dismissively at him, and slipped outside.

The moment the door closed, he heard a mass shift of people from inside, voices hushed near the front window. Pansy stood out in the freezing rain and without a word, he stepped forward and palmed her back, guiding her around the other side of the house. Icy drops splattered his hair and dripped down over his neck. He tucked his hands under his arms and shifted closer to the house to stand beneath the eaves.

Pansy held out the biscuit tin he'd left in Paris, sharp pitter-patters echoed between them as the rain hit the top. "This is yours."

He took it from her, baffled. "You came all this way to return a biscuit tin?"

Her voice faded into the background. All he could do was stare at the tin and occasionally look up at her. She was talking but he did not hear a word. He didn't need to. He knew she was explaining why she let Millicent talk that way or why she let him go or why she let him spend the night or something that wasn't really difficult to take in. Ron didn't need to wrap his mind around any of that because that was easily understandable. But the tin. The tin she came all the way from _France_ to return and what was really confusing Ron was that all he wanted to do was drop the thing into the snow and pull Pansy into his arms and tell her he...

No.

"No..." Ron whispered.

Pansy gave him a sharp look. "No? So you're not listening to me?" She threw up her hands. "Typical. I don't know why I even bothered." She turned and started to march off down the drive, slipping in her impractical shoes.

Ron stood there, watching her leave, watching her walk down the drive. He tried to talk himself out of it. He couldn't have fallen in love with her. Not after one night. It didn't matter, he tried to tell himself, that she had been around him for longer than that. _That_ part had been ministry business; it didn't count. And above all, it wasn't supposed to work like this. Ron's mind spun in a direction that made him want to grab hold of the side of the house and shout for it to stop.

"People don't fall in love after one night. They don't."

But he watched Pansy near the gate at the end of the drive and every fiber inside him told him to run and catch her before she left his life forever.

The tin hit the ground, clattering against the ice.

He reached her before her hand touched the gate's latch. He didn't know how he managed to do that. He didn't care. His arm circled her waist and he circled around her, partly to block her exit. And he kissed her. And he loved her. And he would tell her. And he would bring her back to the house, to the family. He cupped her chin with his hand and pulled her closer, lips moving across hers as though he'd known the perfect way to kiss her since before the beginning of time. He kissed her, the icy rain falling around them, a vague clamour from the front windows of his house, but none of it mattered because he was kissing her.

And she was kissing back.

*~*~*


End file.
